I have lived in 5+ major cities, so have had access to a variety of care, even though I approached it quite cautiously, wanting to find a trustworthy source, as well as complete confidentiality, esp. in the early days when it wasn't a given, let alone mentioned that you could hope to not have an impact at your company for availing yourself of the limited "mental health benefits". But I never approached the possibility of a good or helpful fit until my last psychiatrist who listened to me over a period of 20 years, with some breaks.

And yet she seemed to withhold anything that ever provided the hope of a "breakthrough" - again, it must be ME that is the barrier. I asked for some examples, some similar case studies to try to find how others have encountered similar struggles, MAYBE even surpassed them - "they don't exist" - "they would be different circumstances / facts / blah blah blah". Surely, I said, there must have been some you studied in graduate / medical school. No.

I'm in no way blaming her, but I did literally blast out of the room one final time when, in response to my sharing a rare memory of my mother being - if not supportive - at least neutral, she referred to my mother as "letting" me live (or, in so many words, letting me have my pleasant shared experience without her dumping on it, something like that). I still am not sure, but that concept, coming from my therapist in words, audibly - and not even being endorsed in any way by my therapist - so enraged my very being that I couldn't tolerate it or any more of our otherwise neutral dynamic. On top of it, after all this time - and I'd shared this with her - I had enough of not getting anywhere.

That was 3-1/2 years ago, just before COVID, just before a traumatic living circumstance brought on an abrupt move, that ultimately led me to living in a smaller town about 80 min. away that some distant family we would visit (when I was a teen) once lived in...without telling my mother about it, another struggle that wears on me, but that I have weighed and weighed again and again, and never feel I can share with her, as she will dump on it, likely deem it is about her - NO, I just want to live in a small town that seems pleasant and less crime-ridden, and may one day enable me somehow to blossom into ... myself?

I apologize for the amount of space my posts have taken up here today. But I am overwhelmed with rage, angst, lack of resolution, lack of cheer, lack of purpose and tired of being all about "others" and handling what I can, and doing ALL with a partner that - when I can no longer stand it - doesn't respond to my observations, even the littlest, inconsequential, daily life comings and goings comments, and makes me feel like I either don't exist and/or that my recent ER visit for unusual, unexpected head pain, and other non-life-threatening issues are overblown. I am sick of making things happen, feeling unheard, and being in pain. Not being heard only magnifies the pain, and then makes me feel responsible for it, and ultimately feeling isolated from the connection I have so longed for all my life, but that is that neverending black hole from our childhood.